Daily Search Forum Recap: November 4, 2010

Here is a recap of what happened in the search forums today, through the eyes of the Search Engine Roundtable and other search forums on the web.

Search Engine Roundtable Stories:

• Will You Use Google's mod_pagespeed?
  A couple days ago, Google announced on several blogs that they released a new module for the Apache HTTP Server called mod_pagespeed. It should do what the name says, speed up your pages. Google said: We're starting with more than 15 on-the-fly optimizations that address various aspects of web performance, including optimizing caching, minimizing client-server round trips and minimizing payload size. We've seen mod_pagespeed reduce page load times by up to 50% (an average across
• November 2010 Google Webmaster Report
  As we do every month, we summarize an ongoing WebmasterWorld thread specifically designed to track Google changes. We also provide links to the most interesting Google SEO related topics we covered in the past month. You can find last month's report over here. Here are some of the points from the WebmasterWorld thread: Significant ranking changesGoogle's holiday shopping algorithmRanking changes from day to day Tedster mentioned the "holiday shopping" algorithm, implying Google knows people are
• Link Building Tip: Discover Broken Links & Request Those Links
  A WebmasterWorld thread has a short discussion around a basic but solid link building tip. Basically the strategy is to find third-party web sites that link out to sites, but those links are simply linking to pages that no longer exist. Then politely email the site owner informing them of the broken link and suggest that you know of a resource that can replace the broken link. The tip here is credited to Martinibuster, posted
• Why Google Maps Transit Routes May Not Be Correct
  A Google Maps Help has one Seattle mass transit commuter asking why the transit directions are a 100% correct. In short, the routes Google plots for some transit directions do not follow the actual routes used by that transit agency. Instead, Google will plot a straight line, and not go along the streets. You can see an example of this by clicking here - notice the route is basically a straight line across the map.

Other Great Search Forum Threads:

• What Did Google Do With Image Search At The Beginning Of October?, WebmasterWorld
• 301 Redirects Have Resulted In Total Loss Of Pagerank, HighRankings Forums
• DOTW: The SEO Industry's Reputation Problem, Sphinn
• Facebook SEO: The Definitive Guide to Facebook Search (so far), Sphinn
• Google Sues the United States Govt (Interior Dept), WebmasterWorld
• The Google Holiday Update Conspiracy Theory, Sphinn